Theory For Recruiting Problems

[BeardedVol]

Agree.. It's all about player development. And that boils down to assistant coaches. UT's resume sucks on player development. It seems they get worse once they get here. I attribute that to the fact the last 3 head coaches were "confidence artists"; the talked the talk, but couldn't walk the walk. Jury out on Heupel. He seems to have a football IQ, at least on offense. Let's hope this new group of assistants can develop players. They better - we need 2-3 stars to turn into at least 4 stars. That's what they have to work with.

In these first two years, Heupel has to show that he can get the most out of the players that he has on the roster. None of the last three hires ever put a staff together, that was even remotely capable of getting the most out of the players, regardless of their star ranking.

If he can pull that off, then he's going to have a much better chance of selling UT to top recruits.

 

[FlyFishnVol]

Phil didn't get lazy as much as OU hired Stoops, OSU hired Tressel, LSU hired Saban, USC hired Spurrier, UF hired Meyer, and UGA hired Richt....

Among facility improvements, those rival states hired better coaches and in-state talent was difficult to pull out. Tennessee has improved the instate talent, but because of the last 10+ years, UT has not built a great brand, and hence the best players going elsewhere...jmo

 

[VAVol85]

Lot easier competing against Sparky Woods, John Blake, Dinardo, Dubose, Goff, and Zook than Spurrier, Stoops, Saban, Richt, and Meyer....

I was in Atlanta when Goof was coaching and Spurrier would troll him about all the blue chip players that went to UGA and were never heard from again. Spurrier was was always entertaining (except when trash talking the Vols).

 

[Remy]

Fulmer may have not gotten "lazy" in recruiting, but his evaluations of players was certainly faulty. See his failure to recruit Patrick Willis as evidence of that. Easy to find and read if you take your nose away from Phil's backside long enough.

When you let the Patrick Willis' and Donta Hightowers in your own backyard get away from you, in Willis' case, he begged to come to UT, you begin to see the issue. We let all kinds of in state talent leave these days. Here it is in a nutshell. Clemson now in recruiting is who we used to be. They pretty much get who they want in either Cackalacks, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia, and some select kids out of Florida. We boom preferred walkons with our current staff. We'll see how that works out for us when our product hits the field this fall.

 

[peaygolf]

 

[YankeeVol]

And when you get into the details these rankings are extraordinarily subjective.

UT has very good facilities. Facilities aren't the thing preventing top 5 classes or success on the field.

They absolutely are. And you hit the nail on the head with your second point.

 

[NEVolFan]

Astute comments... you all have been paying attention!

 

[EtowahVol]

Fulmer was Lazy after the NC year. Not to mention Chavis would not recruit. Then the two best recruiters left Garner and Brooks not to mention other coaches he held on to too long. Brooks goes to Clemson and get a Ring while our AD sets on his A$$ and finally shows Fulmer the door about 4 years too late when we could have got Saban. Just imagine if we had got him. But we got 3 used car salesmen. Dooley, Jones and Pruitt.

 

[butchna]

Fulmer was Lazy after the NC year. Not to mention Chavis would not recruit. Then the two best recruiters left Garner and Brooks not to mention other coaches he held on to too long. Brooks goes to Clemson and get a Ring while our AD sets on his A$$ and finally shows Fulmer the door about 4 years too late when we could have got Saban. Just imagine if we had got him. But we got 3 used car salesmen. Dooley, Jones and Pruitt.

Brooks didn’t leave on his own. Went to Clemson after Fulmer was fired and Kiffin didn’t retain him.

 

[jackieaprilesr]

It is my strong opinion we have been falling short in our recruiting classes for some time now. This baffles me since, with our nice facilities, we should be having consistent top 5/10 recruit groups.

We were doing quite well in Fulmer's first years. Phil was a recruiting machine. Put him in a recruits living room with mom, dad, uncle's, etc. and the man would shine. He got more than his share of top recruits then the bottom fell out. What happenned?

I've heard more than a few posters say Phil got lazy but not one of those knows that for a fact. They're just looking for someone to blame.

Anyway, here is my theory for the downturn:

Historically Vols have made a living cherry picking top players from, among others, the eight states that abut our borders. We've all but owned the Carolinas. Georgia, Ohio, Mississippi and the like. And we could go into Alabama, Louisiana, Florida and others with great success.

What changed? As a group those state's colleges have improved their own football programs giving their star recruits more reason to stay instate. Hence, it's more difficult to harvest their prime players.

To me Fulmer didn't get lazy. He put forth the same effort he always did. This trend began to occur during his tenure and effected him.

Now, I am certainly not saying that group of programs in those state's became stellar but collectively they got better which appealed to their recruits.

The record shows that recruiting for UT he as dropped and has been a challenge ever since.

It bothers me that we can't recruit with the Alabama's, Georgia's, and the Ohio State's.

JMHO

a couple a three things............

1. Fulmer got lazy!!!! he promoted an unknown in Randy Sanders to OC after Cutcliffe which caused the QB pipeline to dry up and then he hired a terrible OC replacement for Randy Sanders in Dave Clawsen, as he was unproven in power 5 and could not recruit QBs either. keep in mind, Ainge was a basketball player and an undeveloped football player that competed for the starting job with another freshman, post Casey Clausen......the QB cupboard was bare and Fulmer was unable to fill it with enough talent or experience to win big games. Also, see Jonathan Crompton for visual aid to these facts.

2. Fulmer was not able to directly recruit offensive players that could match the Florida's offense ability to score, as Florida was the only thing in Fulmer's way to win the East each year.

3. Fulmer relied on his tenure rather than his ability to compete on a year to year basis for his job security and called Mike Hamilton's bluff, which was the wrong strategy. Also see, Rod Delmonico.....

4. the 2001 team could of ran the table but Fulmer allowed Chavis to play prevent against M. Mauck an entire game while he ran QB draws up our ass to win the SEC championship. We routed Michigan in the bowl game

the reality is that Fulmer had a great 6 year run of recruits and loyal coordinators and expected it to last forever. when it didnt, he was unable to be successful.

 

[HalfullVol]

12th overall and 5th* in the SEC according to 24/7

*2nd in the East. Ahead of UGA and FL

I'll take that

in recruiting rankings and end of year rankings

with the occassional BCS Championship sprinkled in

Go Vols !!

 

[VOLINVONORE]

Players want to play for big-time programs that win and develop players for the NFL.

Tennessee hired Derek Dooley, Butch Jones, and Jeremy Pruitt.

See the disconnect?

We also had some less than desirable University Presidents, Chancellors, and ADs who restricted program funding, did not classes to help border line students, diverted money from the football program rather than improving facilities, etc. Today, many of those problems are being solved which should allow us to regain some of our swagger. It will take time because many of our SEC and other Universities have now gained huge advantages over us. I feel we are in a position to turn this thing around in the near future.

 

[cobbwebb0710]

So basically other teams got better? Interesting theory

I think Phil and Bowden kinda stepped the recruiting game up a notch, with the help of Tom Lemming. Unfortunately others caught on and stepped up their game as well. When I was growing up, it would’ve been unheard of for a head man to hire a “recruiter” on his staff, knowing he was a liability with the X’s and O’s. Now that’s a pretty common practice.
GBO!!

 

[Tursiops]

Tenn isn’t a great state for high school players. Tenn has always relied on other sites for talent like in NC, SC, GA to get great players. That pipeline has closed with the state schools doing so well. Also it doesn’t help when you’re not winning games and losing to Vandy. Now out of state schools are cherry picking the best prospects in Tenn.

 

[njvols]

Players want to play for big-time programs that win and develop players for the NFL.

Tennessee hired Derek Dooley, Butch Jones, and Jeremy Pruitt.

See the disconnect?

Yep...it's really not that complicated. At a simplistic level...hire the right person, spend money to make money (we do it in everything except football coaches...and run a solid back office (which think we have now w/ new AD). Getting more granular, if JH can show his chops in building exciting offense, that gives you something to build upon...even if all the wins aren't there in Y1...the excitement needs to be evident, out of the gate, or I fear we're in for another 3-5 year experiment.

 

[Envolronment]

Fix Cumberland ave and your about half way to better recruiting classes.

I never mention this on here but this is absolutely right. I have loathed how bad Cumberland Ave. has looked for over 20 years. And after endless construction, smelly portable garbage bens, filthy streets and copy printer sign covered electric poles the city tries to spruce things by adding a hotel downtown. So, they add more tax revenue for them, leave the streets a dump and let the homeless take over the tunnel under bridge at the end of Cumberland. It is not an attractive look to these recruits who are looking at their prospective backyard for the next 3 years.

 

[Impossible Girl]

We don’t have top 5 facilities so why should we have top 5 classes based on facilities alone?

The facilities are absolutley in line with the elite top 5 programs. The margin of difference is negligible. The only thing is updating Neyland but that is all fan experience stuff.

A visit to UT has wow factor all over It, so It’s certainly not the reason for recruiting woes. Recruiting 15 years of suck. Period.

 

[JRich]

Winning makes recruiting better.

 

[BigOrangeFanatic]

I honestly think Fulmer benefited from having 2 (at the time) top end coordinators on both sides of the ball. They are mostly the reason he was a successful as he was. He was(at the time) a great recruiter but Cut and Chief did the coaching. JMO

 

[butchna]

a couple a three things............

1. Fulmer got lazy!!!! he promoted an unknown in Randy Sanders to OC after Cutcliffe which caused the QB pipeline to dry up and then he hired a terrible OC replacement for Randy Sanders in Dave Clawsen, as he was unproven in power 5 and could not recruit QBs either. keep in mind, Ainge was a basketball player and an undeveloped football player that competed for the starting job with another freshman, post Casey Clausen......the QB cupboard was bare and Fulmer was unable to fill it with enough talent or experience to win big games. Also, see Jonathan Crompton for visual aid to these facts.

2. Fulmer was not able to directly recruit offensive players that could match the Florida's offense ability to score, as Florida was the only thing in Fulmer's way to win the East each year.

3. Fulmer relied on his tenure rather than his ability to compete on a year to year basis for his job security and called Mike Hamilton's bluff, which was the wrong strategy. Also see, Rod Delmonico.....

4. the 2001 team could of ran the table but Fulmer allowed Chavis to play prevent against M. Mauck an entire game while he ran QB draws up our ass to win the SEC championship. We routed Michigan in the bowl game

the reality is that Fulmer had a great 6 year run of recruits and loyal coordinators and expected it to last forever. when it didnt, he was unable to be successful.

1. Randy Sanders aced a test under fire in our NC game and was always the heir apparent to Cut. No issue with his promotion and retention…just with the lack of urgency when the regression began. Ainge was never a basketball prospect. He played the sport in high school…so did Peyton. It was a thing. His uncle was a salty teammate of Larry Bird…that’s it. Fulmer had TWO future college standout QBs all but signed as late as his last signing class. He had no issue landing signalcallers.

2. Fulmer recruited damn good offensive players. If Spurrier had landed them, he would’ve had more than one NC. Simply a case of being outcoached.

 

[TitanicVolz]

5 years ago my beloved Titans couldn't sign a can of spam to play for us,Now we just got one of the greatest wrz of all time Jullllllllllioooo Jooones #TitanUp baby...Never say never just win the rest will work itself out baby

 

[TitanicVolz]

AJ Brown,Julio Jones,Derrick Henry,RT,and that nasty top of the leagues Oline.That ladies and gentlemen is how u ground and pound and score a gazillion points ..

Random post but as Deion would say"Cmon Man"

 

[RockyTopTexas]

We aren’t good. We will always get players though

 

[thehill98]

I don’t think it’s ever as easy as one thing. Did competition get better? Absolutely. Philip helped usher in the dominance of the SEC, and the whole conference seemed to improve greatly over the 2000s. But also don’t forget how many programs in the conference had serious NCAA troubles during some of Tennessee’s best years. Bama, Auburn, LSU, Florida all had troubles at different times during those times, and we feasted on some of those times.

 

[Sarms58]

Keep in mind the impact of poor hires...not just head coaches and ADs, but assistants as well. So much of recruiting is done by establishing personal relationships with players and if you have high turnover with assistants because you select the wrong ones the first three or four times you’ll struggle in recruiting.
We have a new staff in place and with one or two exception, these guys are starting fresh building relationships (I expect Rodney Gardner will continue to recruit the kids he had already established relationships with). so we may not have a good ‘22 class but could start improving by ‘23. Much of that will also depend on how exciting the team look this fall (are we gonna be a place where kids want to come play?), what our penalties look like, AND how well the new coaches can build relationships.